Sandy West (July 10, 1959 – October 21, 2006) was an American singer, drummer and songwriter. She was one of the founding members of The Runaways, the first teenage all-girl hard rock band to record and achieve widespread commercial success in the 1970s.
Gary Wayne Schelton (May 14, 1939 – January 7, 2016), better known as Troy Shondell, was an American singer, who achieved fame in the early 1960s. He became a transatlantic one-hit wonder, by releasing a single that made the record charts in both the US and the UK. The song, "This Time" (or sometimes billed as "This Time (We're Really Breaking Up)" ) sold over one million records, earning gold disc status. In a single year, sales were over three million copies.
Robert Alan Lewis (February 9, 1925 – April 28, 2020) was an American rock and roll and rhythm and blues singer, best known for his 1961 hit singles "Tossin' and Turnin'" and "One Track Mind".
Jesse James Rutherford (born August 21, 1991) is an American singer, songwriter, and former actor. He is the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band the Neighbourhood and hardcore band Valley Girl. Alongside his bandmates, Rutherford wrote the number-one Billboard Alternative Songs hit "Sweater Weather", which was certified nine-times platinum in the US in 2022.
Lewis Wayne Williams (January 12, 1934 – September 1, 2019, born Chillicothe, Texas) was an American rockabilly singer and songwriter, known as the "Cab Calloway of rockabilly".
Williams began singing at age four, and moved with his family to Dallas at age eleven. He played in local clubs after graduating Adamson High School and entered Midwestern State University in 1952. However, a few months later he secured a job as a headliner for a radio program on Frederick, Oklahoma station KTAT.
The following year, Williams recorded demos at Jim Beck's recording studio and managed to get a single released on Flair Records in June 1953, but "I've Been Doin' Some Slippin' Too" was not a hit, and he did not release further material from these sessions. He sent some of the demos to Imperial Records, who offered him a publishing contract; Williams attempted to secure a recording contract as well but was unsuccessful initially. Imperial finally signed him as a recording artist in 1955, and his first releases came out in 1956. A few singles were issued in 1956 and 1957, with Jimmie Haskell producing and Barney Kessell on guitar; they did not sell and Williams was dropped early in 1957.
He graduated from the university in 1957 and devoted himself to songwriting full-time. He wrote material for Jimmy Hughes (with Mae Axton), Ferlin Husky, Floyd Cramer, Porter Wagoner, and Hoyt Johnson. After serving time in the Army, Williams took the pseudonym Vik Wayne for one final release on Dot Records, "The Girl I Saw on Bandstand"; when it did not sell, he opened a recording studio and started a talent agency. He left music for good in the early 1960s, moving into the publishing and mail order businesses.
After Bear Family Records released some of his material in the 1990s, fed by the burgeoning interest in rockabilly in Europe and Japan, he made a comeback, appearing in Las Vegas in 2000 and touring widely thereafter.
Lew Williams died at age 85 on September 1, 2019 at an assisted living facility in Winnsboro, Texas.
Therman "Sonny" Fisher (November 13, 1931 in Chandler, Texas – October 8, 2005 in Houston, Texas) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
He was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
Jiles Perry "J.P." Richardson Jr. (October 24, 1930 – February 3, 1959), better known by his stage name The Big Bopper, was an American musician and disc jockey. His best-known compositions include "Chantilly Lace," "Running Bear", and "White Lightning", the latter of which became George Jones's first number-one hit in 1959. Richardson was killed in an airplane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1959, along with fellow musicians Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, and the pilot, Roger Peterson.